


The Secrets of Spies

by Just_here_for_a_laugh



Category: Avengers (Comics), Avengers Assemble (Cartoon), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anger, Angst, Avengers Family, Barney Barton (mentioned) - Freeform, Blood, Clint Barton has hearing aids, Clint Barton is Hawkeye, Deaf Clint Barton, Doombots, Established Relationship, F/M, Fight Scene, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Friends as Family, Frustration, Hulk has a heart, Hurt Natasha, Insecure Tony, Love, Marriage, Nick Fury (Mentioned) - Freeform, OG 6 Avengers, OG Team, One Shot, Pepper Potts (mentioned) - Freeform, Post-Avengers (2012), Protective Hulk (Marvel), Protective Thor (Marvel), Secret Marriage, Secret Relationship, Stress, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony is insecure, Well movies OG anyway, because I said so, blood mention, but only vaguely, call backs to Dr. Donald Blake, its like its 2012 again, mentions of injury, multiperson perspective, relationship discovery, relationship revealed, secret!married, they all live in Avengers Tower, thor is not an idiot, trigger warning blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23312869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_here_for_a_laugh/pseuds/Just_here_for_a_laugh
Summary: It's just a normal day for the Avengers, a little fighting, a little robot invasion, nothing major. That is until Natasha gets hurt and a major secret comes to light
Relationships: Clint Barton & Avengers Team, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Clintasha, Clintasha & the team, Natasha Romanov & Avengers Team
Comments: 4
Kudos: 102





	The Secrets of Spies

Lightning bolts were coming from all directions. The cacophony of explosions and crashes as the Doombots swooped through the air nearly drowned out any orders they gave each other even through the comms. Cars were being picked up and thrown, glass was shattering all around, and robots were destroying the city. So, in other words, basically a normal Tuesday for the Avengers. As another order to flank the southwest corner of one of the buildings was given by Cap and nearly missed as it came through the ear pieces, Clint fired another arrow and knelt down behind a car to adjust the settings on his quiver.

  
“Man, much more noise like this and we could go deaf!” he shouted to his partner with a grin. Natasha rolled her eyes.

  
“Are you ever going to quit making that joke?” She asked with a smirk.

  
“Sure, just as soon as it stops being absolutely hilarious.” He fired again to knock a bot away from Natasha just as she nailed one in the neck with her Widow’s Bite. The two started to run to a more defensible position and take down some of the metal micromanagers along the way.

  
“Keep it up and I’ll have Stark EMP your hearing aids.” she shot back and Clint laughed,

  
“Yeah, but then you’d have to look at me the whole time we had a conversation.” He laughed again as she shuddered in mock horror and then immediately launched herself at a bot and brought it down.

  
“Twinkle Toes, Hummingbird,” Tony called out over the comms, “I’ve got two hanging on, you think you can help me with Rock-em and Sock-em over here?”

  
“On it,” Nat answered immediately.

  
“Coming in hot” came the reply seconds before the Iron Man suit swooped down beside them. Clint shot one of them clear through as Nat jumped from a city mailbox she’d lept onto, hooked herself around Tony’s neck, and swung herself and the Doombot under him letting gravity do the rest. She flipped them in the air so that the bot hit the ground first and somewhat cushioned her fall. Clint kept shooting as Steve ran over and helped Natasha up.

  
“Are you okay Nat?” He asked, but she just waved him off.

  
“Always,” she said easily though he could see her wincing. “Now go get Hulk. Thor’s pretty pinned a block over and he needs help.”

  
“Yes ma’am,” said the captain, running off to find Hulk and offer Thor his own help as well. Clint looked over at his partner to make sure she really was alright. They made eye contact and nodded, both knowing it wasn’t an ideal situation but also that she could more than manage the pain. And so they fought on.

  
“Tony!” Clint shouted, “What’s the status on that suspension bridge?”

  


When the battle was nearly over, all six Avengers were standing above the last remaining Doombot. Tony stepped forward. “Party’s over Easy Bake, you're coming with us.”

  
“That,” the bot started, “is what you think.” Instantly Natasha’s own gears turned rapidly in her mind and she started herding her teammates away as fast as she could.

  
“Run!” she shouted, and they did just in time to escape the bot’s self destruction. They had all stopped to catch their breath when Clint looked over and a piercing scream rang out over the din of the sirens and the fires, stopping their hearts.

“NAT!”

  


  


Clint rushed over to his partner laying motionless in the street. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t see anything but red hair and red blood sweeping down her face. He could barely register when Hulk picked her up and started leaping over cars and debris towards the hospital with Thor flying right behind him; he only knew that he had to be with her. Running at full force down the street after them, he was picked up by Tony who flew the two of them after their teammates with Cap running at supersoldier speed beside them. Once they reached the hospital mere seconds later Thor took Nat from Hulk so that he could navigate her through the tight crowd of doctors and patients rushing about in the aftermath that Hulk didn’t have much of a chance passing through.

  
“Doctor!” Thor called out with Natasha in his arms, “We need a doctor!” A few people in scrubs ran over and began settling Natasha on a gurney as Thor described what had happened. “She has taken a strong blow to her pelvic bone, shoulder, and head as well as numerous cuts to her limbs and face, possibly hitting her femoral artery. She needs immediate treatment.” Clint made his way to the front of the group and put his hand on the metal rail of the gurney, holding on as tight as he could, looking for some grounding in reality. The medical team started to wheel Natasha towards the OR and her team followed suit.

  
“You can’t come back here,” one of the women said, and the Avengers stopped. All except Clint. The woman looked at him directly and said “Sir, you cannot come back here.”

  
“Please,” he barely whispered, pleading with the desperation only a bare soul can express. “I don’t have to be in the OR I just have to be as close as I can. Let me sit outside, let me stand in the same wing, anything. Please.” The woman’s eyes softened and she asked

  
“Are you family?” What came next shocked every other Avenger standing beside him.

“I’m her husband.”

  


Three hours later Steve, Thor, and Bruce sat in the waiting room as Tony paced in front of them. “What’s taking so long? What’s happening?” Tony nearly hissed. Bruce tried to take on a comforting tone but what mainly came through was the exhaustion he, and the rest of them, felt waiting for any news.

  
“These sort of things take time Tony. Surgeries can go on for hours and there’s no sense in giving out any news before they’re over.” Tony knew he was right but it didn’t make him feel any better. He was angry. He was angry at that bot, angry at Victor von Doom, angry at the doctors for not giving them any peace of mind. He was also in shock, from the battle, the explosion, the fear, and not least from the sudden revelation about his teammates in the hospital lobby.

  
“How could they not tell us,” he spit, “We’re their friends! Their teammates!”

  
“Tony,” Steve sighed, starting to defend them, but then he sank back down in his chair and shook his head. “I don’t know.” As much as Steve respected a person’s privacy, he also thought that honesty was important, especially between teammates. He was sure that if they had kept their marriage a secret they had a good reason, but it was hard for him to imagine what that reason could be. S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t have any restrictions on relationships as far as he was aware, and there wasn’t any social stigma surrounding the match. Plus, everyone in the intelligence community no matter what side they were on already knew that the two members of Strike Team Delta nearly always worked together. What difference did it make if they were partners in a personal sense too? He wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt but it really didn’t make any sense. Did anyone else know? Was it just the team who was unaware? Did Clint and Nat think that they would judge them? Every question he asked only confused and upset him even more.

  
“Perhaps they simply wished not to flaunt their relationship.” Thor suggested.

  
“But that's the point!” Came Tony’s reply. “You’re supposed to be able to share your relationship with the people who love you so that they can celebrate it with you and encourage you and support you and all of the other things that come with being friends with people! Even if they didn’t tell the whole world, why didn’t they tell us?”

  
“Maybe it's not true,” Bruce thought aloud. The others turned to look at him questioningly. “What if he lied? We all know those two are best friends and treat each other like family, but I doubt the medical team would have accepted that as an answer to “are you family,” true as it may be. Maybe in the heat of the moment he just said he was her husband so they’d let him back.”

  
“Yeah,” Tony brightened, “Yeah he’s a spy, it’s basically his job to lie to people in order to get into places.”

  
“I don’t know, Tony,” Steve said dubiously.

  
“I agree with Steve,” said Thor. “I am quite familiar with lies and those who tell them, and Clint seemed very genuine. He could not have faked the sincerity of that moment, espionage training or not.”

  
“How about we just wait and hear their side of the story before we keep speculating,” Cap suggested. Tony huffed. He was frustrated but he knew Steve was right. The four of them stayed in the waiting room for another two hours before a nurse came out and told them that Natasha was stable. When they asked to see their teammate she was reluctant to let them into Nat’s room, but sometimes it pays to have Forbes’ most charming billionaire on your team.

  


  


They figured that the spy would be exhausted, so they opened the door quietly in case she was asleep. The sight that greeted them left no doubt in anyone’s mind about the legitimacy of the marriage. Natasha was laying in the hospital bed looking pale but resolute, and Clint was curled up next to her, arms clutching her protectively and body barely fitting on the bed. His head was nestled into her stomach, senses totally consumed with her alone.

  
The redhead saw her team come in and gave them a weak smile. Somehow, it was still a sort of smirk, and they all siently marveled at her ability to remain completely herself no matter how injured she was. She moved to sit up only to be held down tighter by the spy currently wrapped around her person. She laughed softly. “Get offa me you big lug.”

  
“Never.” Clint mumbled. “From now on I’m staying right here and holding you forever and never thinking of losing you again.” She looked down at her husband with a soft smile and gently ruffled his hair.

  
“Okay, but can you do it a little higher up the bed so I can talk to our friends?” Clint’s head shot up and he laughed awkwardly. Quiet noises were not exactly his thing and he hadn’t heard them come in.

  
“Hey guys.” The other Avengers said their hellos, stress of the waiting room largely forgotten in the relief of seeing Natasha alive and relatively healthy in front of them. They all sat down and asked her how she was feeling and offered their help and support and told her whatever she needed to just come to them and said everything else she knew they would say, and that she wouldn’t have needed to hear in order to know it was true. But she let them say it all anyway and when they were finally finished she smiled.

  
“So,” she started, because injured or not Natasha Romanoff did not waste time, “I heard you found out about the full nature of mine and Clint’s relationship.” All the men in the room subconsciously shrank and she repressed an amused smile. “How do you feel about it?”

  
“That’s not what matters.” Answered Steve, “What really matters is how do you two feel about it?”

  
“We feel fine about it.” She answered. Clint nodded.

  
“Honestly I’m kind of relieved. It’s kind of nice to tell someone about it.”

  
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Bruce said hesitantly, “who all knows?”

  
“Only Fury and my brother Barney.” Clint told them. “Fury officiated and Barney was the witness. Nobody else.”

  
“Well,” Nat interjected with a grin, “unless you count the people we tell whenever we go undercover as a married couple for a mission.” Clint laughed.

  
“True. I do love characters where you get to play yourself.” At this, Thor actually laughed aloud and then asked how long they had been together.

  
“About five years, though we’ve only been married for two.” came Clint's answer.

  
“Well then,” Thor grinned, “a hearty, if belated, congratulations to you both!” The couple smiled and thanked him and then things began to settle down. After a minute or so Natasha spoke up.

  
“Tony,” she said, raising an eyebrow, “you’re being uncharacteristically quiet.” The man in question looked at her and then at Clint. He seemed to be wrestling with a question in his head before he finally spit it out.

  
“Why didn’t you tell us?” He visibly deflated like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “Why didn’t you trust us enough to let us know?” He asked in a voice ever so slightly quieter.

  
“It wasn’t that we didn’t trust you,” Clint explained, “In fact, I can pretty much safely say you guys are some of the only people on the planet we do trust.”

  
“It’s just that life as a spy is different than life as a civilian.” Nat elaborated, and the others knew that this had to be true. None of them were spies and while they knew a lot about the world of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its operatives, they were aware that they knew far from everything. “Life as a spy means that every moment of your life is recorded, tracked, compartmentalized, and hidden away only to be brought into use when it suits those above you. We wanted something else, something that was just ours and ours alone. Not to be cataloged and filed for later use, but to just be lived.”

  
“And in order to do that we had to keep it a secret.” The others noticed that as they said this, Clint and Natasha were holding hands. Not boldly, not obviously, just one over the other almost as if by chance, something the team realized they had in retrospect seen them do many times before. They thought about their seamless connection in and out of the field and their commondering of the other’s space and chairs and whatever else when they were all relaxing in the Tower. The signs were all there, they had just never recognized them before. And that had been the goal. The others could understand why they had kept their relationship under wraps, but still everyone turned to Tony. He admittedly struggled for a second but then he just sighed and smiled.

  
“I get it. I’m still not thrilled that you didn’t tell us but that's more about me than it is about you guys. I’m just glad we know now. And I’m really happy for you guys” He chuckled and lightly smacked Steve in the shoulder. “Captain Killjoy here has actually talked me out of a lot of attempts to set you two up if you can believe it so I’m glad I was right.” The couple laughed before Clint turned to Steve and said

  
“Dude, come on! You didn’t want me to go on a date with the girl of my dreams! I thought we were friends,” he grinned. Steve blushed lightly and laughed as well.

  
“I wanted you both to come to it on your own terms.”

  
“And it would seem they did,” smiled Bruce, “Congrats you guys.”

  
“Yes, and,” Tony started, clasping his hands together dramatically, “I know exactly how you can make it up to us that you lied to us the entire time we’ve known you.” Nat groaned to hide her laughter.

  
“What?”

  
“Avengers wedding.”

  
“No.”

  
“Tony-”

  
“A wonderful idea!”

  
Bruce just put his head in his hands.

  
“I’d do it.” Everyone turned to look at Clint, especially Natasha. He looked at her and smiled. “I mean, it’s up to you, but I think it would be kind of fun to have a real wedding with our friends. I mean, that's what weddings are for right? Bringing families together, and I can’t think of a more apt crowd.” Nat smiled. She had never been big on formal events or large celebrations. She usually just saw frivolity and facade along with a chance to do some damage. But this team had changed her in a lot of ways, and so had this marriage. Maybe celebrating that wasn’t such a baseless idea.

  
“Yeah,” she said slowly, “It could be nice.” Everyone else’s face lit up, and none brighter than Clint’s. “But no one outside this room is invited except Fury, Barney, and Pepper.” Tony grinned.

  
“Perfect! Wouldn’t have it any other way, and Pep will be so thrilled to come, trust me she’s gonna love it. And you guys are gonna love it.” He turned to the rest of the team. “Thor, big guy, I’m gonna need you to run up to Asgard and get some of those fancy engraved everythings you have up there and bring them down here. Bruce, you can cook right? Bake a mean cake?”

  
As Tony continued to plan their wedding right there in the hospital room and the others tried to stop him from going completely overboard, Natasha had to laugh. Here she was with her friends on her left side going over ridiculous plans to celebrate her, and her husband on her right side, holding her close and safe and grinning ear to ear in the chaos. She smiled took a minute to simply exist in the moment. She was content, she was with her family, and here, in this hospital bed, she was home.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this, it's by far one of my favorite tropes! I don't own Marvel or anything associated with it. Happy reading!


End file.
